May 29th

"It's a dangerous business going out your front door.
- JRR Tolkien"

It seems like Nuclear energy is really the only way out of our energy crisis. I'm not a big supporter of coal since it does horrendous things to the environment, visually at least.

Got myself a little vacation goin' on here. One of those stay at home vacations that go really fast. Checkin' out some movies. Went to Spiderman 3, Shrek 3, and we're up for pirates 3 next. Sense a pattern here ? What is the deal? The only really 'original' movies coming out here are Simpsons and Transformers, both look good.

Looks like I'm getting to visit my ny home here in a few weeks, which is nice. I've missed my sisters and mom very much, and my friends, who were a big part of my fun there. I wonder if the mealoncholy will be as powerful upon my leaving there this time, after having spend 20 challenging months there. I do miss the guys at Delta Funding though....what a great bunch of guys.

I'm reading the book 1776, the non fiction one, it reads like butter. My oh my the things I'm ignorant of astound me. I'm sure at one time my excellent public screwl education gave me some of this information, but I recall none of it, so did it happen?

George Washington hasn't won a battle yet and I'm more than halfway through the story. Its stunning how inept he appears, but really he wasn't ready for the fight. The war machine of America wasn't ready...we hadn't had control of the sea nor did we have sufficient training. It was very impressive how they ran them out of Boston, but I think the brilliance of that came from Knox, not Washington. So far the only good thing I've heard of Washington is that he looks good in a uniform. I'm anxious to learn what events turn the thing around. Its interesting the Congress was so involved...down to specific battle strategies, and they were bad at it. I'm going to try to get to some of the sites where Washington stood down the British.

New Rush album! Ahh, the days that I can say that are not over yet! I'm so grateful for those guys....I should send them some notes on what they've done for me. Its a supreme irony that these atheists are so helpful to a Christian. What comes through so strong in all their tunes, even the most ardently secular songs, is a pure ethical humanism, a hopefulness in the future of humanity despite ourselves.

Family is great.. Chub is so cool....he's getting big though, very strong. He headbutts you and you see stars. Brianna got glasses and they look right on her. She's too pretty. Bryce is fabulous -- he's ramping up on Chess really fast. We bought the passable Chessmaster Challenge version, but I'm not terribly bowled over by it. 3 chess sets in it....? no tutorials. no animations....it just lacks the full features of what I thought the Chessmaster line had....oh well, its fun.

Prisig

"Whenever you kill a human being you are killing a source of thought too. A human being is a collection of ideas, and these ideas take moral precedence over a society. Ideas are patterns of value."
Robert T. Pirsig

I wonder if they screwed up his middle initial, since I bet this is the ZAMM author.

I love this meme.

Random thought

I saw a post by an 18 year-old on a blog somewhere labeled...what is the purpose of life. I loved it. I also had those wonderings....around this age if not before. 18 is not too young to ask it, but its most certainly too early to understand the answer.

I'm more than double this persons' age, and I still don't have it. I've been playing with the idea that humanity has placed upon it the task of finding Truth through experience. Humans turn energy into information. I sit on my chair, burning a small amount of calories, typing information into this page. Energy->Information. As I place information and communicate it, these are disseminated into Memes, small atomic ideas that may or may not have context.

As these memes are disseminated through the consciousness of humanity, for lack of a better term, they either survive or die based on their experiential merits. But is that it? Does humanity keep the "true" memes, or do we follow whatever meme is communicated loudest?

I'm optimistic. If humans were lambs following the loudest voice, Hitler would have succeeded. The West wouldn't not be predominant. China wouldn't have to limit its citizens' information flow. These memes are powerful, they're honed over human history, and resisting them is futile.

I see America as a provider of the Freedom Meme. We penetrated the curtain in Iraq, and we have our blood in the soil. Its not clear as if we should have occupied, but taking out tyranny? That is something I am for. The best way to do it, of course, is in a cold war containment method. Since these radical governments cannot get the best memes, due to their censorship, their economies do not generally work. Thus they are doomed, and it is the West that must determine with great skill how to complete the conversion of the world away from tyranny and to a world of freedom and opportunity.

I owe you words Blogger!

"We are more ready to try the untried when what we do is inconsequential. Hence the fact that many inventions had their birth as toys.
- Eric Hoffer"

Vacation is coming. I hope to do some writing and rejuv.